


Wakanda

by Daretodream66



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Depressed Steve Rogers, M/M, then he's not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 22:45:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17569355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daretodream66/pseuds/Daretodream66
Summary: Steve thinks about Bucky coming out of cryo.





	Wakanda

**Author's Note:**

> I know this has been written a lot, but I wrote this two years ago and decided to post. Also, fun fact...this is the first thing I wrote for this fandom.

Chapter 1

It’s raining again. In Steve’s mind, there shouldn’t be this much rain. And yet here he is feeling the pelting of rain.  He’d taken to running every day, just like in DC, but here it’s more running away from something, than endurance.  Steve is aware that he’s running away.  He embraces this fact and runs harder into the jungle.  At first he’d stopped to look at flowers and plants that were unlike anything he’d ever seen.  Now, he just runs.  Thankfully, Sam stopped asking what was so captivating about the jungle that kept him running for hours at a time.  Recently, he’s simply told Steve to be careful and come back before the wild things come out.  “Cause I’m not draggin your half eaten carcass back here and explaining it to the six million dollar man in the freezer.” 

Bucky…

That’s the crux of the matter. Hence, the running.  In Steve’s day men didn’t discuss their feelings.  They worked hard and kept their feelings to themselves.  The problem being that Steve was always different.  Yeah, the serum made him even more different, but even before that he wasn’t like everyone else.  Being small and artistic and with a mother like Sarah, Steve hadn’t had a chance in hell to be anything but different. She was the reason he had an ‘overblown sense of honor.’ Steve could hear Sam’s voice when he thought about it. 

Size of the body doesn’t matter, she’d tell him, the size of the heart does. Having to be inside most of his childhood with his pencils and notebook and being so angry that _this_ was his life, he’d lost his temper too many times.  His mother just kissed him on the forehead and told him that it would all be alright.  They both knew his days were numbered.  No one thought he’d make it past 5, then pasted 18, then past 30, but he was stubborn.  And even when his mother lost hope, Bucky never did.  No matter how sick Steve was, Bucky saw him through it.  Sarah called Steve a blessing.  Steve thought of himself as a burden. 

So, feelings.

He’d shared with his mother until he realized that the more he talked about how he was feeling, the more of a hindrance it was to her. The guilt she felt for his many maladies and the weight of paying for the abundance of medications he needed.  He locked those feeling down and never brought it up again.

 

But here he is, in Wakanda, running through the jungle because Bucky is coming out of cryo tomorrow. Steve knows that the Bucky coming out of that frozen nothingness is not the same Bucky he grew up with.  How could it be?  He knows that the Bucky coming out of cryo has been tortured beyond measure and made to do things that no one should have to live through.  He also knows that, just like him, Bucky isn’t innocent.  Bucky was the best damn sniper in the army, so he’d killed before.  It wasn’t the killing that might undo Bucky, it was the lack of choice.

Steve looked back on a quiet, near violent conversation with Natalia in a hospital a few years ago and remembered her saying that the Winter Soldier was a ghost, that he was credited with dozens of kills.

It was the time frame that was Steve’s issue. _Dozens of kills over the last 50 years_.  He hadn’t thought about that until Bucky was already back in cryo under the watchful eye of T’Challa’s doctors.  If that were accurate, that meant it took 20 years to break him.  That meant that for 20 years, Bucky fought back.  That meant that for 20 years, Bucky had been praying for Steve to save him.  Then, he’d given up and knew that Steve wasn’t coming for him. 

Steven Grant Rogers had failed his best friend. The only person, besides his mother, that had ever really mattered.

As the rain pounded down and the sound of his feet beat out a rhythm in the vastness of the Wakandan jungle, Steve was doing his best to hide. Bucky would be out of cryo, mind rewired to deal with the trauma and ready to have a new arm attached and Steve would have to come to terms with his worst failure.

 And his feelings.

Before the war it had been easy, since Bucky was always out with a different girl. During the war it was easy because it was a war. During the fight to get Bucky home it had been easy because it was…well, war. It wasn’t until the elevator in that damn Hydra base that it had hit Steve so squarely in the chest that he was certain his asthma had returned.  He knew that he’d been in love with Bucky, that wasn’t the problem.  The problem came when he realized that Bucky was back.  Until that moment, it hadn’t been real.  Not real in the sense that, ‘oh Bucky’s here,’ but real in the sense that, ‘okay, he’s really here and now he can live out a life that was taken from him and that might not include me.’ _That_ kind of real.

Steve is running. Preparing himself for the inevitable.  The moment that Bucky heals and Steve isn’t needed anymore. 

Stopping in mid-stride, Steve starts laughing. To the outsider it would seem that he’s lost his mind, but it’s the irony of the situation that’s funny.  Not funny _haha_ , but more funny in that Steve is pathetic.  Steve had always needed Bucky, whether he was sick or during the war, he needed the constant presence.  Now, he wanted Bucky to need him and that was the irony, because Bucky never needed Steve.  In fact, his life probably would have been easier if Steve had never been part of it. So, super serum or not, Steve is no different than he was all those years ago.  He needs Bucky.  He doesn’t want to need Bucky.  He wants…  He’s not sure what he wants for Bucky.  He just knows he really needs it to include Steve. 

Steve starts running again. Only this time heading in the opposite direction back to the palace.  If he doesn’t head back, Sam really will come looking for him and that won’t turn out well for anyone.  Sam will see there’s a problem and want Steve to talk about it and that is something that he just can’t do right now.  With the lights of the palace in sight, Steve speeds up.  When he reaches the steps, Sam is waiting.  Umbrella in one hand and a towel in the other.  “I was wondering how long you’d be out this time.”  Handing the towel over, he swipes his passkey over the lock and the door pushes open, “Now you’re going to drip all over the floor and make these poor people work harder.”

“Sorry.” Steve mumbles while towel drying his hair. He is aware that Sam is watching him and waiting to see if anything else will be added.  Steve keeps moving through the hall.

“One of these days you’re going to realize that I’m here to help, that I’m your friend, and I’m not going to counsel you, unless you want me to, I’m just going to listen.”

Steve stops. It’s easy to forget sometimes that he’s not completely alone. He and Sam have become good friends.  When Steve gets too into his head, Sam helps him untwist the knots that form and tries to point him in the right direction.  Hanging his head and nearly dropping the towel, “When I was growing up, men didn’t talk about their feelings.”  He can feel the blush creeping up to his ears.

Sam laughs dryly. “Well, in case you hadn’t noticed you’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.” Walking up to Steve and putting a hand on his shoulder.  “Just say it. Whatever it is, just say it out loud.”

There’s a catch in his breathing and maybe saying it will relieve some of this weight. And Sam is safe.  “I’m in love with him.”  It’s as simple as that.  And Sam doesn’t laugh or gasp or do any of the other things that Steve imagined he would.

“I bet that felt good to say. Couldn’t have been easy carrying that around in a time when having those kinds of feelings could get a guy killed.”  He turns Steve toward the living quarters.  “Now, go shower and meet me in the kitchen.  I cooked and you were not here to enjoy the culinary genius of Mama Wilson’s Jambalaya.” 

Steve starts to his room and hesitates at his door. Never looking up he heaves a sigh.  “Thanks Sam.” 

Sam only smiles a little brighter as Steve enters his room. They are spacious rooms with a living area complete with large windows facing the jungle, a bedroom with a bed so big that Steve is sure it’s larger than a king size and a bathroom the size of Steve and Bucky’s apartment in Brooklyn.  The water is warm and he lets the warmth sooth all of the muscles that he pushed too hard today.  Now, if it could only sooth the addled mind of a super soldier with everything to lose. 

The kitchen is empty except for Sam and a steaming plate of something on the table that smells better than anything Steve’s had before. He sits down and Sam puts a glass of water in front of him.  Taking the seat across from Steve, Sam leans on his elbows.  “You thought I would reject you. Or maybe judge you.”  It isn’t a question, just a statement of fact.

“I thought it was possible.” Steve takes a bite, his eyes nearly roll back in his head.  “Sam, this is incredible.  What did you say it is?”

The smile that lights Sam’s face is blinding. “That, my friend, is my Grandmother’s Jambalaya. It is a secret recipe and I don’t make it for just anyone.”  He smiles a little longer, but it fades.  “Why did you think you’d get rejection?” 

This is a question, but it isn’t a challenge, it’s curiosity. “Because that’s what would have happened.”

“Steve, you are the best tactician I’ve ever met, but you really are clueless when it comes to feelings.” He chuckles and shakes his head. 

“Let’s be honest, if anyone had known during the War, I wouldn’t have been given the serum. And I probably would have been put in jail.”

“Does he know?”

Nearly choking on the food. “What? No! I’d never burden him with this!”

“And you’re sure it would be a burden?”

This is why Steve had not wanted to talk about it. It isn’t a gay crisis or self hatred.  It simply is.  Steve loves Bucky.  He’d known it.  Probably most of his life, but in a time when being gay meant getting beat up or jailed or killed, you just didn’t say it.  Or think it.  Or feel it.  He wasn’t ready to face all that it could mean.  But here is Sam, asking all the right questions and Steve had nowhere to hide.  This is why he should have left Wakanda.  This is why he should have left Bucky to heal, with the help of Sam and the other counselors and not been the reason that Bucky is held back.  He never wants to hold Bucky back.  And if he’s here and in the way, then he’s a burden.  He wants Buck to have all that he deserves.  And he deserves everything.  “Yeah, I’m sure.” 

“You thinkin of runnin?”

Steve keeps eating, but he’s less and less hungry. “Sam…”  He pauses, not wanting it to come out too harsh.  “Sam, I knew _that_ Bucky better than his family.  I know, in my gut, that _this_ Bucky just wants quiet and peace for once in his very long existence.”  Putting the fork down and moving away from the table.  As though running wasn’t enough, he needs to move if all of this is going to come out.  “He is going to have too much to handle when he comes out.  The last thing he needs is some guy, he used to know, in his space.  Some guy, from a time he barely remembers unloading on him. Come on, Sam…this, he couldn’t accept.  This would be asking too much of our friendship.”  Steve steps to the door.  “Thanks for dinner.”  With that, he’s gone and in his room before Sam can reply.

 

Chapter 2 

Steve wakes sometime in the night. Sometime before the sun starts peaking through the leftover clouds.  Throwing on sweats and a tee shirt he makes his way to the cryo room.  Standing, watching Bucky through the clear enclosure, he wipes his eyes and moves to place his hand on the case.  “You look like Snow White.”  The sound of the door draws his attention.  T’Challa moves with a quiet grace that always surprises Steve.

“Captain, it is late and you should be sleeping.” He stands just behind Steve, never seeming to interrupt Steve’s contemplations.  T’Challa is a great man, the kind of man that Steve wishes he could be.

“Tomorrow he comes out?” Steve knows the answer, but needs to hear it again.

“Yes, it will be a great relief to me that I can repay the wrongs done to him.” The King acts as though all the torture was his fault.  When Steve questioned him on this he had replied that his action had added to Bucky’s suffering.

“He will be grateful for everything you’ve done.”

“And you, Captain? Will you be grateful?”

Steve turns, shocked by the question. “Of course! Your Majesty, if I have given you the impression that I am not grateful, I am very sorry.”

“It is not that, Captain. It is that you seem distressed by his return.”  T’Challa has a calming influence on Steve and the others.  He and Sam have developed a kind of friendship that is at times antagonistic and others true brotherhood.  The King has taken time to teach Sam some of the customs and a bit of the Wakandan language.  And there are times that Sam eggs the King on by shouting random threats during training sessions.  Only once did it actually stop the King in his assault.  But then when your ‘enemy’ shouts, “If you keep this up, I’ll leave a box of kittens on the palace steps.” It would throw anyone off their game.

“I wouldn’t call it distressed. Apprehension perhaps.”  Steve wants to reach out and touch the enclosure again, but keeps his hands in his pocket where he put them when he heard the door.  It isn’t that he thinks T’Challa doesn’t know that he was touching the case, but it is better if he doesn’t show affection in front of someone that must always be so controlled.  Maybe it is that Steve doesn’t want him asking either.

“When I was a boy, I asked my father about emotions and why he was so guarded outside of our living quarters.” Steve is unclear where this line of conversation is going, but if there is one thing that he has learned, it is that T’Challa always has a point.  “He told me that a King must always measure his response by his surroundings.”  He moves forward and places his hand on the tube. “Love, Captain, is not what we want it to be, but what is necessary at a given point in time.  Your friend can only be what you allow him to be.  Do not take his choice away from him because you are afraid of the strain it may place on him.  When we make ourselves vunerable we can sometimes find what we desire.”  He leaves the room as quietly as he came.  Leaving Steve to stare at his friend, his brother in arms, his companion, his heart.

Tomorrow everything is going to change. Tomorrow is the beginning of the rest of Bucky’s life, whatever that may entail.  “I love you, Buck.”  Steve returns to his room and stares out at the jungle. He falls asleep sitting in an arm chair watching a bird flit amongst the branches of a tree.

When he wakes he wonders if Sam said something to T’Challa, but he knows better. Sam never shares with another what they talk about.  This wasn’t Sam, this was Steve being too transparent for his own good. 

When he was a boy, how he looked at Bucky could be called hero worship. When they were in the army, it could be chalked up to having his best friend back from the jaws of death.  Now…now it’s just Steve loving Bucky more deeply than he thought possible.  Love grows over time and this love has been growing for nearly a century. 

Steve believes that Natalia knows. It’s why she held T’Challa off in the airport that day.  It’s why she put herself on the wrong side of the Accords for Steve.  Her childhood was stolen from her and she had only started to discover what love could mean when Bruce disappeared.  She was going to give Steve that chance.  Even if no one else understood what the battle at the airport was really about, Natalia did.

The cryo room is crowded when he arrives. The coffee he had before leaving his quarters is not sitting well.  They have started the thawing procedure and Sam and T’Challa are in intense conversation as Steve watches the chamber hum out the sequence that will release Bucky.  The process takes nearly an hour.  When the chamber finally opens, Steve is standing next to it covering Bucky with a blanket. 

When Bucky’s eyes finally open, he looks up at Steve with a wistful, half-drunk smile and with the rasp of a man that hasn’t spoken for almost a year, “Stevie.”

When Steve looks back at this moment, and he will, he will say that it was the smile that caused it or that it was the way that Bucky said his name or that all good sense flew out the window when he saw those blue/grey eyes again, but whatever it was, he will swear on all that is holy, he didn’t know it was going to happen.

 

Chapter 3

Bucky’s lips are nothing like Steve imagined them. Of its own accord, his hand has come up to brush the side of Bucky’s face as he pulls back from kissing his best friend.  It is then that he realizes what he’s done and that he will never be able to sell the idea that Bucky was still too out of it to know for sure that it actually happened, there are witnesses. 

Witnesses to his transgression. Witnesses to his thoughtless act.  Witnesses to Steve putting his want before the well-being of this beautiful, tortured, trusting man.  Steve backs away from the table with the word ‘run’ pounding in his mind.  Before he can get too far, Sam is behind him, holding him in place.  “Don’t Steve.”  Hanging his head in defeat, he listens to his friend. “Don’t run and take away his right to understand what just happened.”  The words are quiet, just for Steve to hear.

Bucky is trying to sit up with T’Challa’s help. He’s looking at Steve like he’s never seen him before.  Confusion and some other emotion warring on his face.  “Steve?”

Without looking up and wanting more than anything to hide or throw up, maybe both, Steve clinches his fists. “I’m sorry Buck. That was out of line and it won’t happen again.”

T’Challa motions to all of the doctors to leave. It is clear that they are hesitant to, but would never contradict their King.  “Come Sam, we should give them a moment.”  Sam and T’Challa withdraw and when the door is closed Steve takes a deep breath and raises his head.  This won’t be the time that he runs from a fight.  No matter what his instinct was a few seconds ago, he won’t be a coward. He looks Bucky square in the eye to give him the satisfaction of dressing Steve down for what he’s forced on his friend.

Bucky smiles that quirk of the lips that had girls ready to faint in 1939. “Come on, punk, ya look like I’m about to kick a puppy.” As much as he wants to Steve can’t seem to return the smile, instead he feels tears forming.  Bucky tries to stand, but can’t get his legs under him. 

Steve catches him and helps him back to the table. “Standing may not be the best idea, Buck. You’ve been under for almost a year.”

“Well, when my best guy looks like he’s gonna cry, I can’t just sit there.”   

‘Best guy’? That isn’t right.  He can’t mean that the way Steve wants him to.  That’s a term reserved for someone’s significant other.  “Buck?”

Bucky is still smiling. “Damn Steve, it took you long enough to notice.” If there is a description of Steven Grant Rogers in that moment it is bumbling idiot.  He reaches for a nearby chair and missing epically, comes close to falling on his ass.  Bucky chuckles and leans out to try to steady his friend. 

Steve’s breath is coming fast now and when he brings his hands up to run them over his face, Bucky can see they are shaking. “Buck…I…do…I’m n-not sure what’s happening.”

Gingerly, Bucky eases off the table, checking the strength in his legs. Seeing that they will hold this time he stands and holds his right hand out to his friend.  “What’s happening is you figured out how I feel about you and are trying to tell me you feel the same. Right? Holy hell Steve, please tell me that’s what this is cause if I misread this, I’m gonna feel real embarrassed.”

Steve takes Bucky’s hand and stands in front of him. “No, that isn’t what’s happening.”  Bucky starts to pull away looking like he wants to crawl back into cyro immediately.  “Wait, what I mean is, this is me, trying to tell you how I have always felt about you.  But I didn’t know you felt, you know, the same.”

“Well, we are a ridiculous pair, aren’t we.” Bucky steps into Steve’s personal space and leans his forehead against Steve’s shoulder.  “We don’t have to do a long, drawn out talk about this, do we?” 

Steve puts his arms around his friend and holds him close. “Nah Buck, I think we can figure it out as we go.” 

Bucky raises his head. “You know I love you, right?”

Steve chuckles. “Yeah, I kind of got that when you didn’t slug me for kissin ya.”  Bucky’s smile could light New York City.  “I love you too, Buck.” 

“This is not what I expected when I woke up. Thank god it did.  I couldn’t do this without you, punk.” 

Steve tightens his arms. “You never have to do anything alone again, jerk.”


End file.
